I just stumbled upon this Kickstarter project from Bru Gear. Their kettles and fermenters look good and seem to be at reasonable pricing. I haven’t done so yet, but I’m thinking about pulling the trigger on one of the kettles. According to Homebrew Finds, sounds like delivery of the kettles is estimated for June.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2055692701/bru-gear-stainless-steel-brewing-kettles-and-ferme
I’m in the same homebrew club as Phil, the founder/owner/partner/whatever pf Bru Gear. The Bru Gear products are awesome. Very high quality similar to and some will say exceeding Blichmann. If I had the money and space, I would be buying the full 1BBL system. For now, I’m trying to see if I can scrounge up the $995 to get the set of 20 gallon kettle/HLT/tun so I can use them on a nice system later.
These prices are really a steal for this high of quality and Phil is a genuine stand up guy. If you find products you like and have the funds, I’d highly encourage you to pull the trigger.
His stuff looks nice, id be interested in checking out a conical but i dont see much info about them on the kickstarter page.
Man if I had nine grand sitting around he’d have one donor for sure. Heck if I had 4500 bucks with nothing better to do…
Phil has some great stuff and an amazing reputation around the Phoenix area. If you need to see any of his products just send him a message, he has been incredibly responsive to any questions I’ve had and made modifications like adding in the whirlpool ports to all 3 brewhouses with nothing more than a simple request.
If you’ve got the cash for any of his products it’s well worth it. I’ve been working out the logistics of opening up a brewery in the area and his project has allowed me to lower my opening costs significantly, I just pulled the trigger on his 3 BBL system.
I went in for a 14g Conical. They look nice, but time will tell for this dubious East Coast boy:D
Looks like he is going to hit his goal, get in now while you can:)
I believe you can still donate and receive the prizes after funding as long as it’s reached.
Sometimes campaigns will add a bonus if they hit their plan with loads of time left.
Man that is nice stuff! Very tempted to redo my brewery and go with an induction HERMS. Though I’m not sure if the induction element is included.
with induction there isn’t really an element. You would need an induction stovetop or induction cooktop to use induction to heat the kettle. I did sign up for one of his induction kettles. Basically it has a piece of iron sandwiched between 2 layers of stainless steel on the bottom of the kettle. The induction cooktop would then heat that piece of iron directly and the heat would rise and be passed to the wort in the kettle.
Phil is very quick at answering questions and is quite infromative. Send him an email via his brugear website and he will contact you:) His kickstarter is also very sensitve to feedback so hes been changing things to fit his customers needs etc.
Cheers,
Jeff
I understand how induction works. I guess a better question is whether we supply the “cooktop” or is it included. I’m kinda reading this as induction capable. An email is in order…
Ah. Yeah I assume no cooktop is included.
Looks pretty cool, I got in about a week ago- I went in for a 14gal fermenter.
His work looks pretty nice, hoping this goes through!
Prompt response! No induction elements currently available but are in the skunkworks. Looks/sounds promising.
Goal has been exceeded. I spoke with Phil a few days ago and he said that his prices will be higher then the kickstarter prices, so if you are interested better get in on it now while its a deal:)
Jeff
Just curious if anyone knows, are the capacities (5 gallon boil kettle for example) the full capacity, or the recommended batch size? I know I would not want to brew a 5 gallon batch in a 5 gallon pot.
Not sure what their full capacity is, but I think 5 gallon kettles are ideal for extract batches and maybe 2.5 gallon batches. I do a lot of 3 gallon batches and those usually call for about 4.25 - 4.5 gallons of wort and I wouldn’t be comfortable doing these in a 5 gallon kettle. Not saying it’s not possible, but you would have to be real careful with boil overs. The price for the 10 gallon kettle is just $40 bucks more and a great deal at $150.
After tossing the idea around, I finally pulled the trigger on the 10 gallon kettle.